Less roads are left being an eyesore and are making driving difficult as the City has fixed 117,483 potholes, resulting to a significant increase of 26,945 or 22% more pothole repairs compared to the year of 2015/2016.
“I am delighted to confirm that through our positive interventions, the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA), the City’s entity responsible for the maintenance of our roads, has resolved the crisis by working overtime on evenings and weekends, utilizing R60 million for much-needed pothole repair material and equipment,” said MMC of Transport, Nonhlanhla Makhuba.
Roads had to be fixed due to heavy rainfall that caused damage that occurred last year in November and early this year in January.
The Executive Mayor, Herman Mashaba decided to allocate R88 million to focus on the actual problem so that roads can be fixed at a faster rate.
Makhuba said that the extra allocation of money was used to assign contractors to help with the accumulation of work.
“Added to this, R28 million has been provided to recruit the 40% JRA road maintenance staff capacity shortages.
“Prior to these interventions, the JRA was not keeping up with increased service requests for pothole repairs following heavy rains, but the interventions have enabled the situation to be stabilised.”
The quality of roads and the safety of users has improved, but this solution will only last as a short term to the problem.
To make it more long-term, the city would like to allocate more money for such activities in future.
Makhuba stated that the city has not been sufficient with roads infrastructure in previous years and that is what is causing the potholes to develop easier.
“The city’s 13 428 km of roads infrastructure is ageing and has not been sufficiently maintained over many years.
“This means that potholes, which are a sign of failing surface and structural layers, will continue forming with each new rainy season.”
Makhuba concluded that the city is working towards making Johannesburg a better city with the infrastructure.
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